One Thousand Ways to Die (If Your Name Is Lord Voldemort)
by Lily meet Ginny
Summary: Whether it's due to bad planning or Petunia's backhand, Lord Voldemort is not having a good day. One-shot


**One Thousand Ways to Die (If Your Name Is Lord Voldemort)**

(A/N: AU. Concrit is more than welcome.)

Lord Voldemort was certainly the darkest wizard not alive. He terrorized infants, stole candy from dead people, and caused people to fear his name. After all, if they said it, they might look like him. Being dark had been wonderfully delicious, until that dratted infant had caused hell to break loose from all nine circles. In fact, he could blame it all on Harry Potter, who had thrown him from his body at the tender age of fifteen months. He had been thrown into the backwoods of Albania in an undignified manner, which immediately made it a terrible offense. From that point on, Lord Voldemort plotted revenge.

Albania was never good enough. He had started making his way west, back to Britain, before any Hogwarts professor ever turned up. Without a human body, he travelled by snake and insect. Snakes were always preferable, but they weren't always around. The further he traveled, the more difficult it was to possess someone. By the time he neared Surrey, the great and utterly evil Lord Voldemort was forced to inhabit the only thing close to a body that he could find. He flapped his multicolored wings and cursed the day he had discovered the secret to Harry's hiding spot. Why did he have to find a bloody dragonfly? Why couldn't it be a proper English bug? In fact, the only thing worse would be to be forced to be a flobberworm. Despite his colorful predicament, he knew he had to get back and defeat the pestilent infant. Once he did, he knew he would be restored to his proper place on the chain.

The infant was nine years old by this point, as time had flown by while the self proclaimed Lord Voldemort was inhabiting various critters. Harry was at the stove, cooking enough bacon to feed the Dursleys (which was a staggering amount of bacon). He'd been up early and had finished most of the cooking, with only this frying pan left. He usually left the bacon for last since the Dursleys always wanted it hot, but never burnt. The one time he'd tried to reheat it, he had blackened the bacon. He wondered whether he would have enough time to steal a piece before his Aunt came to check up on him.

He reached out to grab one; however, he was quickly distracted from his pursuit when the room became ice cold. Lord Voldemort crept toward Harry Potter, though it didn't take Harry long to turn around. Harry gasped at what he saw.

"Boy, see what you've done to me," Voldemort hissed at Harry, condensing and solidifying as he gained proximity to the boy.

"I have been pitched from my body, but now I'll take yours in turn. I shall exact my revenge!"

Unfortunately for Voldemort, by this point the smell of burnt bacon was permeating into the other room. It was almost as if Petunia had been summoned with how quickly she came shrieking in. It was probably for the best that Petunia couldn't have seen Voldemort even if she was observant to things other than gossip and dirt. She might have given pause then, which wouldn't have necessarily bode well for Harry. Instead, she ignored the cloud of mist and zeroed in on Harry, advancing menacingly. It only took a second before she began screaming at him, brandishing the frying pan in a dangerous manner, grease and all.

"You little ungrateful freak! You burnt the bacon! I should toss you out for this."

A heavy frying pan swung towards the child's head, although that child easily dodged it. Harry had seen one too many flying frying pans in his day. It only took getting clipped once to permanently increase your reaction time. However, Voldemort wasn't quite so lucky. He had never met Petunia before- not that he'd ever particularly desired to meet a muggle like her for any reason other than to torture- and was ill-advised to deal with her nasty temperament. He missed his chance to duck. Thwunk! The frying pan clobbered the condensed spirit, leaving Voldemort covered in boiling grease. Harry watched in perverse fascination as Voldemort slowly fizzled away.

Petunia, obviously satisfied that she had taught the freak a lesson (though she refused to look in case there was some lasting damage that the freak's magic wouldn't heal), put her nose up and tossed the frying pan into the sink, before heading back to the table. She didn't even notice that she'd completely missed Harry. Harry watched for one last minute as the odd ghost thing bubbled out of existence, before finally disappearing. He was unsure as to what exactly _that_ had been about. He'd heard one of the teachers mention poltergeists before, and decided that nasty thing must have been one. They were allegedly spirits of chaos, and that thing had certainly been trying to cause chaos. He'd thought that the teacher had said they were invisible though. He shrugged, before putting it out of his mind and going back to preparing breakfast. It wasn't like he could ask anyone anyway. What would he say? It would inevitably get back to his aunt that he'd asked such a question, and that would lead to greater ridicule and time in the cupboard. He'd rather not have insane added on to freak, thank you very much.

* * *

Somewhere in the forests of Albania around a week later, a spirit slowly came back into existence. Although he continued to roam the forest, he roamed aimlessly. He had no idea what he had done that week. It was a blank. On top of that, Lord Voldemort was at a loss as to why he had a massive headache and couldn't remember his master plan clearly. Spirits don't get headaches! It just wasn't proper. He attempted to shove away the newfound pity and camaraderie he felt for Harry Potter. He wasn't sure where such a disgusting feeling had come from. No, it was better not to think about it, avoid it like a plague of puppies or chocolate indigestion. As he floated on, he shuddered. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why he smelled vaguely of bacon grease.


End file.
